I was 29 years old and hanging out with the then girlfriend. We were at her house in the middle of the afternoon. She didn’t have any lights on. Her windows were open. The shades were up. Light from outside was coming into the room. She said she doesn’t usually have lights on in her room. She said preferred it that way.

Many times when I go to a friend’s house I’ll see that their front door is open, and maybe there’s only a screen door closed. If the door happens to be closed, it may not be locked and I’m encouraged to just go inside.

Those things confuse me. They always have.

No, it doesn’t make sense to you. It probably won’t. It shouldn’t.
It barely makes sense to me. But, let me explain.

My house always has the doors closed and locked. The windows are rarely open. The curtains are always down. This is what I’ve known for the majority of my life. It’s how my parents did things in the house. If I lift a curtain, it gets pulled back down. It’s what I was programmed to know as normal.

My life has literally and figuratively been locked away in seclusion and darkness.

Breaking my programming is not easy. Some of the sources of the programming are no longer around, but what they taught me still exists. Changing my normal to something else isn’t something I’ve found easy to do.

But, this isn’t just about doors being locked or windows being down, it’s a lot deeper than that. It’s about the people, places, and things in my life that have made me depend on darkness for comfort.

I’ve been in the shadows cast by more outgoing friends and family members. I’ve been the one that was noticed or picked last. My accomplishments only get attention when I point them out. There’s always been that dark cloud over my head.

I can’t flat out tell you that I don’t enjoy being miserable. I know that I enjoy being comfortable. Miserable is comfortable for me. Happiness confuses me. Yet, I enjoy happiness. I enjoy the feelings that I get when I’m happy. However, when I’m happy, I’m sure things are going to fall apart. Why don’t I assume that things will get better when I’m at my more miserable points?

Again, I’ll say that I’m sure this doesn’t make sense to some of you. I’m almost envious of that. Although, if you’re happy all the time, I’m confused by you. I’ve often wondered what type of delusional world that eternally happy people live in. Does it really exist? How are they oblivious to what I see and deal with? Or am I oblivious to what they see and deal with?

I don’t have the answers to the questions I’m asking here. You probably don’t either.

How can someone change 42 years worth of programming when so many situations that have caused that programming remain the same? How can I change what may not be able to be changed? If I can’t change some things, can I work around them?

I’ve written 10 entries this year. Some of them offered hope. They offered prospects of renewal in my life. They offered new chances. There’s a lot of good things happening for me right now. There really are. I’m very much aware of that and I have enough perspective to know that things are going (mostly) well for me. And yes, I did have to throw in that little hint of doubt. It’s because I’m constantly expecting everything to fall apart around me. The balance I’ve been seeking in my life seems to be there already. I see it as lots of little good things being canceled out by bad things.

Do I focus too much on the negative? Do I imagine the negative? What if things really are going great for me right now and I don’t know it? What if things aren’t going to fall apart?

Here’s some irony for you. My anxiety levels just spiked as I was typing that last paragraph. Yes, as I was discussing the possibility that my life might be going well, I got anxious about it. I think that sums up this entry very well.

Now that I’ve taken a few minutes to gather my thoughts as I wrap up this entry, I realize that what I said earlier is very true. I don’t have answers for my questions. I think I just have to keep going on this journey. Yes, my journey may be through darkness, but maybe one day there will be a window of opportunity and some light will filter through.